More recently, the question of Fed leaks has focused on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where an employee passed confidential information to a banker at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. That episode raised concern about ties between government agencies and the financial industry.
Medley Global
The 2012 report on the FOMC came from Medley Global Advisors, a member of Washington’s policy intelligence community. Medley was founded in 1997 by Richard Medley, former chief political strategist for George Soros. Medley left the firm in 2005 and died in 2011 at age 60.
Firms like Medley try to glean information and insights about policy-making for hedge funds and other clients.
Medley issued its FOMC report on Oct. 3, 2012, one day before the Fed released its minutes. People who received the Medley report could have positioned to profit from a decline in U.S. Treasury security prices that followed the Fed’s official release......

The inside world of Wall Street is far different than what is disseminated to the ... the Managing Director of financial services research for Medley Global Advisors. ... Kiron Sarkar joined the M&A department of Rothschild in London, working on ...

(Bloomberg) -- Argentina’s economy minister said Citigroup Inc.’s local unit is violating the country’s laws by signing a private accord with hedge fund NML Capital and U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa without consulting the nation.

The agreement, announced March 22 by Citigroup, undermines the government because it doesn’t create a clear path for holders of the country’s bonds covered by local law to get paid, Economy Minister Axel Kicillof said. While it allows Citibank to fulfill its obligations as custodian of the debt by passing along payments to other financial institutions in March and June, that money is unlikely to ever make it to bondholders, Kicillof said.

“Citibank is trying to be friends with both God and the devil,” Kicillof told reporters in Buenos Aires. “It needs to comply with local law or be susceptible to sanctions.”

Citigroup was faced with either potentially being in contempt of U.S. court if it made the bond payments in defiance of Griesa or losing its local license if it compiled with his ruling, which prevents Argentina from paying interest on restructured debt before holders of defaulted bonds including NML are paid in full. Under the agreement reached between Citigroup and NML, the bank’s Argentine unit will exit the custodian business after making the June payment.

Kicillof said he will send a letter to the securities regulator, central bank and other entities so they can investigate if the bank is violating local laws.

Citibank “has signed an agreement that’s going to call into question its activities in Argentina,” Kicillof said.

NML Lawsuit

Asked to elaborate on what he meant by Citibank’s activities being called into question, Kicillof said he couldn’t say whether that would mean it would have its licence revoked since that decision falls on regulators.

NML, a hedge fund run by billionaire Paul Singer, sued Argentina to demand better terms for its defaulted notes from the economic crisis. After winning a 2012 decision that said the nation must pay so-called holdout creditors in full at the same time it serviced restructured debt, the ruling went into effect last year, causing Argentina to default on July 30.

The default on foreign-law notes may now spread to bonds issued under local legislation, which have an interest payment due on March 31, if financial intermediaries beyond Citibank comply with Griesa’s ruling.

Kicillof said Citibank shouldn’t have agreed to drop an appeal of Griesa’s decision to include local law bonds in his injunction. The agreement is a “scam” that hurts bondholders because while Citibank is making the payment, the funds will still get blocked in the process, Kicillof said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Daniel Cancel in Buenos Aires at dcancel@bloomberg.net; Charlie Devereux in Buenos Aires at cdevereux3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Walsh at bwalsh8@bloomberg.net Rita Nazareth